NICK CLEGG needs to brace himself for the soggiest of damp squibs at his Lib Dem conference this weekend.

His beleaguered party gathers in Glasgow today for its final get-together before the next election with the outlook looking wretched.

Bad luck has turned the event into a pitiful coda to the autumn conference season. The Lib Dems usually hold theirs before Labour and the Tories but were forced to the back of the queue by the Scottish independence referendum last month.

In that campaign north of the border the Lib Dems played a minor role in the push to keep the UK together. Given that a majority of Glaswegians backed an independent Scotland Mr Clegg's troupe might not get an entirely warm welcome from some of the locals.

More worryingly for the centre party the wider electorate is unlikely to be captivated by the prospect of speeches by Danny Alexander, Ed Davey and other Lib Dem ministers. The various liberal obsessions will seem more paltry than ever in the aftermath of the historic referendum battle and the dramas played out at this year's Labour, Tory and UK Independence Party conferences.

Disastrously for Mr Clegg the conference timing allowed David Cameron to pull off a cheeky coup by stealing a march on Lib Dem tax policies.

Disastrously for Mr Clegg the conference timing allowed David Cameron to pull off a cheeky coup by stealing a march on Lib Dem tax policies

The PM announced an eyecatching £7.2billion-a-year package of income tax cuts to be implemented if the Tories win a majority that included a pledge to hike the basic rate threshold from £10,500 next April to £12,500 by 2020.

Raising the income tax net to free the lowest paid from the levy has long been a Lib Dem manifesto priority. Not surprisingly the Deputy Prime Minister's team is furious about Mr Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne pinching its idea.

The spectacular Tory tax cut announcement from this week appears to be already paying dividends with the party zipping into its first opinion poll lead for over two years yesterday. In contrast the Lib Dems remain cast in the doldrums.

They have slipped into being Britain's fourth party behind Ukip in popularity.

One recent poll put the Lib Dems on course for just 6 per cent of the vote in next May's general election. Private estimates by the Tories suggest the centre party will get fewer than 20 MPs, well below half of its current 56-strong House of Commons representation. One senior Tory said: "It is looking really grim. They face being wiped out."

Mr Clegg faces an unenviable task in delivering his keynote speech next Wednesday. It will be difficult to persuade anyone in the conference hall that the party is on course for anything other than the sort of pitiful election results that the old Liberal Party used to notch up under Jeremy Thorpe's leadership in the 1970s.

In an era of four-party politics with next May's result still teasingly tricky to predict the Lib Dem leader can still make a case that his party has a chance of holding the balance of power after the general election - even then though a role in another coalition is far from guaranteed. Both Labour and the Tories are unlikely to take a party that has taken a severe beating from the voters very seriously.

Tory ministers look askance at the way their coalition colleagues have squandered the electorate's goodwill through churlish attempts to distance themselves from Conservative policies.

"The Lib Dems could have shared the credit for the economic recovery but they have blown it," one senior Tory told me.

"They have been so desperate to differentiate themselves from us that they have surrendered the whole issue of the economy to us. All they have left to talk about are gimmicks."

Mr Clegg has been unfortunate in that events out of his control have turned his final set-piece gathering before the election into a conference season afterthought.

But when the voters give their verdict on his party's five years in government the Lib Dems will have nobody other than themselves to blame.

Battles between Tories and Ukip is turning nasty

THE defection of former Tory MP Mark Reckless to the UK Independence Party had a strangely transformative tonic effect on the Conservative Party conference.

Tories are getting used to arriving for their annual gathering with splits and scandals dominating the headlines. This time an act of treachery stirred real fire and fury.

Revenge was the favourite topic over glasses of wine, lager and gin and tonic at the conference parties in Birmingham this week. One minister told me: “This has changed everything. Reckless repeatedly told colleagues that he wouldn’t defect then he did just that right on the eve of conference to cause us maximum damage. We will throw the kitchen sink at him.”

Party chiefs have all but written off any hope of stopping Ukip’s Douglas Carswell taking Clacton at next week’s by-election.

They believe defeating Mr Reckless in Rochester and Strood later this year is far more achievable. In a recent academic study of seats most likely to switch to Ukip the Kent constituency was ranked only at 271.

Suddenly relations between Tories and Ukippers are freezing over. In the past many in Tory ranks viewed members of Nigel Farage’s anti-Brussels party as kindred spirits. Now realisation is dawning that the rivals are heading for vicious combat using the dirtiest tactics in many marginal constituencies.

The Tory conference had a peculiar atmosphere. Few party members were convinced in their hearts that their party can win an overall majority at the next election yet they are still full of zeal and up for an electoral fight.

Mr Reckless’s move was reminiscent of a team of footballing minnows scoring an early goal against Premiership giants in an FA Cup tie – such a strike can trigger a relentless onslaught from the big-league side for the rest of the match.

Tories know they are facing an electoral war on two flanks. The blue-on-purple battle now looks like being just as nasty as the one against the reds.